Susan Harris - Until Death Do Us Part

Skin & Bones, book 1

Collateral Damage, book 2

Smoke & Mirrors, book 3

Night of the Hunter, book 4

Never Back Down, book 5

Shortcut to the Grave, book 6

Arsonists Lullaby, book 7

A Tale of Two Houses, book 1

Until Death Do Us Part, book 2

In Defiance of the Stars, book 3

Shattered Memories

Chaos Theory, book 1

Butterfly Effect, book 2

Wicked Game, book 3

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Until Death Do Us Part

Copyright 2019 Susan Harris

All rights reserved.

Summary: Rowan and Julian come back from their ordeal changed and reluctant to share their struggleseven with each other. As they strive to be the king and queen Vernanthia needs, they must grapple with their newfound powers, a new marriage, and the complications of falling madly in love with someone whos practically a stranger. The path of true love was never smoothly pavedbut this is a minefield.

ISBN: 978-1-63422-357-7 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-63422-356-0 (e-book)

Cover Design by: Marya Heidel

Typography by: Courtney Knight

Editing by: Kelly Risser

My only love sprung from my only hate!

Too early see unknown, and known too late

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

I had always envisioned that death would be peaceful, quiet in its execution and deadly in its final moments, sweeping in like a storm and leaving behind a quiet devastation in its wake. It was never something that I feared: Death, an inevitability that came to us all. I never saw myself slowly withering into old age the war between the covens preventing me from contemplating living that long. Yet I would never have imagined that I would die leaping to my death, holding the hand of my most hated enemy who I could now call husband.

During nights in the Dredge, I listened enraptured while soldiers conversed about what they expected from death. Considering I would one day stride into battle alongside them, I wondered what my own death would be like.

In a future where I would be the sovereign of the Cambridge coven, I had once thought that if I died as Queen, then it would be from a blade slicing through my flesh or a well-timed arrow to the heart. It would be a glorious death fit for a queen.

The soldiers in the Dredge had laughed along with me, toasting their own glorious deaths with a round of stale ale. But there was one soldier, whose eyes held a little more darkness than his younger comrades. He held my stare as he uttered words, telling me of the time where he had felt himself die from wounds hed obtained, and in the moments before magic saved his life, he felt the coldness of death, and he had never recovered from it.

When my father died, I remember standing next to his body as it lay on a dais in the throne room, as subjects came to pay their respects. In the brief moments that I had alone with him and my mother, it appeared that he was simply sleeping, his eyes closed, his being still. I did not consider that he was never coming back until I slipped my hand into his and felt ice.

When Jules and I stepped over the edge, his hand clasped in mine, I felt the quietness of death in my very soul. I was strangely at peace as we crashed into the cascade of waves below us, as the impact of the water cracked my ribs. I felt my rib puncture my lung and the burn as I gasped for breath. I mourned the loss of Jules as his hand slipped from mine, and deaths reaper came to collect as my heart gave one final beat and I died.

I was prepared for death and had made my peace with it.

What I wasnt prepared for was coming back to life again.

Sheer agony splintered through my body as my ribs knit together again. It felt as if someone had reached inside my chest and bent each and every rib until they went back into place. I opened my mouth to scream and swallowed an ocean of water, the pain in my body so damn loud I could not think.

Suddenly, I broke through the surface of the water, my scream reverberating off the empty cliffside. My vision blurry, I blinked a few times to try and reclaim my sight, dragging myself through the water to grasp hold of a rock before I succumbed to the treacherous waves once more.

Tears fell from my eyes in earnest, scalding my skin. I glanced down at my hand and watched as the cut skin, probably sliced open by some rock beneath the surface, closed before my eyes. In my shock, I almost let go of the jagged rock. What in all that was holy had just happened?

Night had fallen, so I must have lingered beneath the waves for the entire day. My eyes sought out a sign that Jules had also survived or for whatever it was that had befallen me, but I felt a sorrow ache in my chest because I could see not a sign of him. The fates must have decided that a crueler twist in our story was for one of us to survive the other.